Joint Astrophysical Colloquium
Star formation and Galactic environment
Eva Schinnerer (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy)
Wednesday 31/10/2018 @ 11:30, Sala IV piano Battiferro
High angular resolution observations of nearby galaxies allow us to sample the star formation process in different galactic environments.This provides insights on the importance and role of galactic components such as bulges, stellar bars, spiral arms and active galactic nuclei (AGN) in the conversion of cold (molecular) gas into stars. New instruments can now regularly image with high quality and sensitivity large field-of-views at the scale of individual star-forming units, namely Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs) and HII region (complexes): ALMA is fundamental for imaging of the molecular gas properties in the star-forming disks, while the optical Integral Field Unit MUSE on the VLT is providing detailed information on the ionised gas and stellar population. I will highlight recent progress in the field and present new results from the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) survey that studies a representative sample of nearby massive, normal star-forming galaxies.